


Night Watch

by Niel_Ellington



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Male-Female Friendship, Mythical Beings & Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 15:13:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6990628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niel_Ellington/pseuds/Niel_Ellington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody knew where the changes came from, and even though some enthusiasts were still trying to figure that out, the majority – and most importantly, the government – had long given up. After all, they had no choice but to accept it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Watch

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a beta-reader, so I'm sorry for any mistakes you may stumble upon. If somebody wants to help me with editing, you're very welcome!

“Oh, come on,” she said tiredly, when she opened the door. “Don’t you have anywhere else to go?”

“Sorry, no,” he chuckled with a weak smile.

“Well, come on in. You’re barely standing.”

He nodded gratefully and stumbled inside, almost sending her to the ground. There was an angry reddening on his jaw, a small bruise on his cheekbone, and he had quite an impressive black-eye. He looked like he hadn’t eaten for a few days. Last she had seen him, he was a bit pale, but nothing too serious. Not like this.

“An accident again?” she asked, pointing to his cheek. “To the kitchen, you. I’ll get you something to eat and some ice for your face.”

“Well, you know how it goes,” he shrugged and winced from a stab of pain. “They might use us, but it doesn’t mean they have to like us. And what’s more natural than tripping on the wet floor?”

“Not us,” she corrected, “you.”

“Wishful thinking. It’s just that you were lucky where I wasn’t.”

“I’ve got soup,” she cried from the kitchen and came back before he had a chance to reply or get up. “Here you go. It’s not exactly ice, but I guess it'll do.”

They sat there in silence. She was thinking about how unfair her life was, and how tomorrow or the day after he would come here again, bruised, and how she would work on that new thing and try not to imagine poor souls on whom it will be tested.

She didn’t know what he was thinking, but suspected that pretty much the same.

“Why is this my life?” she asked.

“Why is the world like this?” he echoed.

They exchanged quick glances and fell silent again.

 

She’d been working in a chemistry lab for eight years now, and she was fully convinced it was to last till the very end of her days. Unless, of course, _they_ decided to take her as an experimental subject, but she doubted it. She was too worthy of a scientist to waste her life like that.

Nobody knew where the changes came from, and even though some enthusiasts were still trying to figure that out, the majority – and most importantly, the government – had long given up. After all, they had no choice but to accept it.

It all started two hundred years ago, but even today the whys and wherefores remained unknown. She was one of lucky still-people who, just like everybody else, had genes which, unlike everybody else’s, were for some reasons sleeping. He didn’t fare as well, and his genes awoke, if not fully. All of the Awakened were compared to magical creatures from science-fiction, and writers of the nineteenth or even twentieth century would have called him a vampire. Or half-vampire, since she never asked just how much he could do.

Of course, there was always a possibility that the Sleepers would awake as well. _They_ ’d shown her what awaited her in such a case. She didn’t want it; she knew she’d do everything to avoid it, especially because she was fully aware of what _they_ did to those who turned out to be uncontrollable. And she definitely would be – she knew too much.

Sometimes in the mornings she got up at the obscenely early hour, soaked in sweat, and took a very, very long shower while desperately trying to erase pictures from her nightmares from her memory. Sometimes she stopped in the middle of a sentence and had to blink a few times to get rid of some particularly nasty image. Sometimes…

Sometimes she did nothing.

Nobody would want to end up like this. Nobody. She wasn’t an exception, never was.

 

“Want some tea?”

“Yeah, why not,” he reached for a little mirror she’d left on the coffee table and studied his face. It was still bruised but already started to heal. She knew that in half an hour his black-eye would become green and yellow and his minor cuts would be gone completely.

With her mind blank and her thoughts stuck like in a quicksand, she stared at the kettle. Then the water started to boil, and it turned itself off. She’d always loved making tea. It helped to organize her thoughts and suppress unnecessary emotions. Occasionally she got up, washed her hands, walked out of the lab and put the kettle on. _They_ submitted to this one particular whim of hers, and for that – only for that – she was truly grateful.

“Get back here,” he called. “I heard that, I know you’re done.”

“Can’t I have my moment of peace and silence?” she shouted back half-mockingly.

“Nope. Not with me, anyway.”

And with those words he had the impudence to laugh. She huffed in annoyance.

“Here,” having returned to the living room, she pushed his cup into his hands and angrily put her own on the coffee table, so that the tea almost splashed out.

“Whoa, whoa,” he chuckled, “easy there, tiger.”

“Sorry,” she sighed. “I’m just really tired.”

“I know. So am I. But we can’t do anything about it, can we?”

“Actually, we can,” she looked at him with deadly seriousness.

“Don’t even think about it. I told you, it’s a very bad way out.”

“But who knows, maybe it’s better— “

“I said, don’t!”

“Alright, alright.”

“So,” he started after a few awkward moments, “do you mind terribly if I stay here tonight?”

“Of course not,” she sighed, not in the mood for jokes and snarks anymore. “Don’t be an idiot. You can have the sofa.”

“Thank you for your kindness, your grace,” he bowed from the waist as much as it was even possible when sitting.

“But you are forbidden from behaving like a clown.”

“Oh, you stabbed me in my very heart!”

“No being a clown,” she repeated warningly. “I’m off to the bathroom, feel free to – well, anything.”

In the bathroom she braced herself against the sink and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She was not so good-looking herself, with those deep dark shades under her eyes and thinned lips.

Oh, who was she fooling? She looked just like she felt – awful.

She quickly brushed her teeth, splattered water on her face and glanced at the mirror before leaving the bathroom. And then she froze peering at herself.

There, in the mirror, right on her face were yellow eyes with vertical pupils.

She took a shuddering breath and blinked.

After all, she always knew this would happen. And still… Nobody wanted to end up like this, and she wasn’t an exception. But apparently, she didn’t have a choice anymore.


End file.
